Rights Action – February 21, 2011

CANADIAN MINING & GANG RAPES: FROM PAPUA NEW GUINEA TO GUATEMALA

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MINING WATCH CANADA release:

HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT CONFIRMS RAPES BY SECURITY GUARDS AT BARRICK MINE IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
http://www.miningwatch.ca/en/human-rights-report-confirms-rapes-security-guards-barrick-mine-papua-new-guinea

(Ottawa – February 1, 2011) A report released today by Human Rights Watch confirms allegations of gang rapes and other human rights abuses by security guards of Barrick Gold’s Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) mine in Papua New Guinea (PNG). This important report represents but the latest attempt to raise public awareness about these long standing abuses at the mine. Until now, Barrick and the personnel of the PJV mine have responded to numerous credible attempts to alert the company to the abuses of its security personnel with denial and, frequently, by attempting to discredit those who raised the issues.

“We already alerted Barrick in 2005 to serial killings being perpetrated by PJV’s security guards before Barrick took over the mine from Placer Dome” says Jethro Tulin of Akali Tange Association, a local human rights group. “We sent Vince Borg and Grey Wilkinson of Barrick Gold a letter and deposited our report called ‘The Killing Fields of Porgera Joint Venture’ in the office in Port Moresby so that Barrick would know what was going on.” Pressure by members of Akali Tange Association and Canadian media attention, among others, contributed to an investigation by the PNG government of the alleged killings in 2006, but that report has never been released.

Since 2007, Jethro Tulin has been travelling to Canada yearly to speak in front of Barrick’s board of directors and shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting. At these meetings Mr. Tulin has consistently raised the alleged killings and rapes by the mine’s security guards, only to hear Barrick’s directors assure shareholders that these allegations are false. Mr. Tulin has been accompanied in Canada by Mr. Mark Ekepa, the chairman of the Porgera Landowners Association for landowners living within the mine’s lease area. Mr Ekepa too has repeatedly challenged the local mine management and Barrick Gold to acknowledge abuses perpetrated by the mine’s security forces and take action on behalf of victims. Both men have met with senior Barrick executives in Toronto on two occasions.

In response to a letter in May 2008 from Mr. Ekepa to Barrick’s then-President and CEO Greg Wilkins, the Porgera mine manager responded to Mr. Ekepa saying, “we found your public allegations of our employees ‘gang raping’ Porgera Land Owners’ women to be most distasteful, to say the least, as you know these allegations to be untrue.”

“I have done what I could for many years to raise the abuses by the mine’s security forces with Barrick Gold executives, shareholders, and Canadian civil servants and members of parliament and my own government officials,” says Mark Ekepa, “As recently as June 5th 2010 I wrote to the mine manager about the rapes of three young girls by PJV engaged members of mobile squads.”

While Barrick denounced allegations by local Porgeran leaders, the company also declined to investigate the activities of its security forces, even in the face of a three year investigation into the alleged killings and rapes by senior researchers from human rights institutions at Harvard and New York Universities. These researchers testified about their findings before a Canadian parliamentary committee in 2009 and 2010, and filed a substantial report in 2009.

“Barrick has chosen for many years to ignore the urgent warnings the company has received in both written and verbal form about serious human rights problems associated with its security forces at the Porgera mine,” says Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada. “This new report by Human Rights Watch appears to have finally moved Barrick to take some actions that may prevent abuses in the future.  We hope that Barrick is now also prepared to consider reparations for people who have been harmed by its security guards and will be more open to dealing with other environmental and human rights concerns at the Porgera mine.”

Coumans further notes, “The Canadian government has also ignored information it has received about the human rights and environmental concerns at Barrick’s operations in PNG. Porgerans have met with civil servants of CIDA, Foreign Affairs, and Trade a number of times starting in 2007 and raised these issues directly with them. Nonetheless, in 2010 CIDA provided $158,241 for a Barrick reforestation project in Peru, with more payments to come. With the defeat of Bill C-300 the Canadian government can continue to ignore complaints about human rights abuses and reward tax payer dollars to projects at the mine sites of Canadian companies against whom serious accusations have been made.”

For more information contact:
Catherine Coumans, MiningWatch Canada: catherine@miningwatch.ca, 613-569-3439; Jethro Tulin, Akali Tange Associaiton, Papua New Guinea, jctulin@gmail.com, 675 72817336; Mark Ekepa, Porgera Landowners Association, Papua New Guinea, emarktony@gmail.com, 675 71234467
For a copy of the Human Rights Watch report see: http://www.hrw.org/node/95776
For a copy of the Harvard and New York University report see: http://www.business-humanrights.org/Documents/CanadaParliamentarytestimonyreBarrickPJV/

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From: Mike Chapman [mandf@netidea.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Subject: comment on CBC “As It Happens” show of Feb 2, 2011

Dear CBC “As It Happens” radio programme:

I was very interested in your coverage tonight of the alleged rape by guards of Barrick Gold, a Canadian mining company in Papua New Guinea.

I have been traveling to Guatemala for the past five years with groups of University Nursing students interested in community health.  We have discovered there actions by Canadian mining companies there are atrocious, using very weak and corrupt local regulations to justify ignoring basic human rights in their search for huge profits.

In the case of Goldcorp, operating in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, department of San Marcos, 99% of the profits leave the county for Canada, and one of the major investors in the company is the Canada Pension Plan. Their record there is appalling: water contamination and depletion, serious health effects amongst the population, abusive acts by security forces including the shooting and seriously wounding of community leaders and protesters, and a complete denial of responsibility for any ill-effects from their operation.

In another part of the country there is another Canadian mining-related story that you (CBC – “As it happens”) covered in your June 18th radio program involving Canadian film-maker Steven Schnoor and Skye Resources (now HudBay Minerals). He was awarded damages from the Canadian government for false statements made by the Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala who denied Schnoor’s findings as bogus, and stuck up for this company's abusive eviction practices.

This same Canadian company (then Skye Resources, now HudBay Minerals) is currently being charged in Canadian courts for murder by their security forces.  Widow files $12M suit against mining company: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/12/02/mining-lawsuit002.html#ixzz1ClYo5a9u

The land eviction in this particular film had many observers, and so was in fact relatively calm and tempered. Members of Skye/HudBay's same security forces are charged also with gang-raping women in another community. Apparently, eleven are prepared to testify to the rapes and violence. (For details, contact Grahame Russell, co-director of the Canadian NGO Rights Action. He is currently in Guatemala, and can be reached info@rightsaction.org).

The CBC is definitely scraping at the tip of an iceburg here, with your questions about Canadian government complicity in all of this. This is extremely important coverage. I commend you for it.

Mike Chapman
Nelson, BC
mandf@netidea.com

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EDUCATIONAL DELEGATIONS

TO HONDURAS (MARCH 19-27):  "HONDURAN PEOPLE'S PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT, in resistance to the post-military coup regime".  CONTACT: Karen Spring (spring.kj@gmail.com)

TO GUATEMALA (APRIL 17-23):  "INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE & HUMAN RIGHTS * versus * MINING COMPANIES & IMPUNITY".  CONTACT: Grahame Russell (info@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448)

TO HONDURAS (MAY 14-22):  "HONDURAN PEOPLE'S PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT, in resistance to the post-military coup regime".  CONTACT: Karen Spring (spring.kj@gmail.com)

TO HONDURAS (JUNE 28 - JULY 5):  The Alliance for Global Justice is organizing a delegation to Honduras.  We'll be hosted by the FNRP and led on the ground by Rights Action's Karen Spring.  CONTACT: AFGJ@AFGJ.org, 202-544-9355 x1